Letting Your Broody Hen Hatch Her Eggs

I’ll never forget waking up on an early October morning to hear the undeniable sound of new life unbound—PEEP PEEP PEEP! I was shaking like a leaf with excitement.
Our Easter Egger hen Lucille 2 (from the show Arrested Development, also we already had a Lucille, so it was perfect!) had turned broody. Very broody. She had taken up residence in the E-Coop: a term we organically & accidentally created for the emergency coop*


We noticed she was in one of the nest boxes, hunkered down. We finally got to see what was underneath her; 3 eggs. She was the new member of the flock. My mate Joseph and I thought “let her stay”:

1. She can catch a break from those savages (the rest of the gang)
2. This is a natural process
3. Our financial situation, our schedule, and our backyard chicken situation were all such that the addition of 1 to 3 more birds would not be a problem.

A lot of time went by. It seemed much longer than the standard 28 days of incubation an egg goes through. We had to keep feed and water containers right up to her face as she refused to leave the nest box. We were growing concerned. We thought she was killing herself to sit on unfertilized eggs. We were THIS CLOSE to aborting the mission—no pun intended--and getting her out and tossing the eggs. Of the three eggs she sat on, two were born. My heart sang at the site!